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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27652921">The Princess and the Diplomat</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheReader321/pseuds/TheReader321'>TheReader321</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Where Sozin decided that friendship was better than genocidal tendencies, alternative universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:49:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,963</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27652921</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheReader321/pseuds/TheReader321</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sharp golden eyes stared out challengingly towards him. When Avatar Aang had decided to take a breather from the Air Nomad's trade negotiations with the Fire Nation by taking a walk around the palace gardens, he didn't think he would bump into another escapee.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aang/Azula (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>71</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. An Unlikely Meeting</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The girl’s chest rose and fell with exertion. Sharp golden eyes stared out challengingly beneath damp strands of hair that had carelessly fallen across her brow. When Aang had decided to take a breather from the trade negotiations by taking a walk around the Firelord’s gardens, he hadn’t expected to bump into another escapee.</p><p>"Have you come to chase around my skirts and offer me bending advice that I don’t need?" she asked, blood red lips shifting into a smirk. “Believe me, monk, you wouldn’t be the first fool to try."</p><p>The young air nomad looked down to see a small flame pointed threateningly towards his chest. The colour of sapphire, he noticed, carefully watching as it danced at her fingertips. He had observed enough of the girl’s practice session to understand that she was quite capable of using it.</p><p>Using his bending, he gently pushed himself backwards out of reach. “I would not presume to do either of those things, my lady," he said with the same tone that he had used with the Firelord’s ministers, cautiously lifting his hands in surrender. “Although part of me is curious as to why such a gifted Firebender should have to hide her practice sessions?”</p><p>Clearly pleased by the compliment, the girl moved her hand to the side, allowing him to come closer but with the knowledge that she could strike at any moment. “My grandfather believes that noble ladies should not waste their time firebending.“ she replied. He watched as her smirk loosened into a self-satisfied smile. Aang thought it made her look even more beautiful. “I come out here every night to practice on my own. Even my older brother hasn’t learned how to bend blue flames yet.”</p><p>“And who is your grandfather?" he asked. Judging by her confidence in wandering the palace grounds, Aang assumed he was some sort of royal official.</p><p>“Firelord Azulon.” the girl— no, princess— sighed, golden eyes carefully watching his response. “I want to join the Royal Military when I grow up, but he wants to betroth me to one of his stupid governors and do nothing but raise ghastly children.” She looked so horrified by the idea that Aang found it hard to stifle his laughter. In all his travels, he had gotten to know many other souls who sought a different path than the ones forced upon them— but he had never quite met anyone so headstrong before. She scowled at him for a moment, but then giggled along with him at the absurdity of it all. Cutting through the eery silence that often descended across the Firelord’s palace at night, the sound of her laughter was like a melody to him.</p><p>"It’s not the place of a foreign emissary to reprimand the Lord of the Fire Nation on how he chooses to raise his heirs, no matter how ridiculous his expectations are.” Aang finally said, contemplating as the princess carefully schooled her face into a clearly well-practiced blank expression. “Hence, it’s likely for the best that I keep what I saw tonight to myself.” </p><p>Her eyes widened in surprise, before pausing for a moment to once again level a smirk at him. “I suspect it’ll be rather easy to hide this from my lordly grandfather, since you still haven’t revealed to me your name." </p><p>He blushed slightly, the sounds of Gyatso’s childhood lectures about social etiquette ringing in his ears. “My name is Aang of the Southern Air Temple, your grace.”</p><p>The princess glanced up at him in wonderment, before elegantly curtsying towards him in respect. “Avatar Aang…. my sincere apologies for not recognising you.”</p><p>He felt his face grow even redder. “Please…. just call me Aang, your grace,” he said, feeling bold enough to take hold of her free hand and gently pulling her back to her feet.</p><p>Her pretty golden eyes met his grey ones as she nodded slowly. “In that case… call me Azula.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. A Princess' Conundrum</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Three months passed and winter turned into spring, but the Air Nomad delegation remained in the Capitol. </p><p>The good news was that this meant that Aang was able to stay as well, rather than continuing on to the Northern Water Tribe as initially planned. From what Azula was able to gleam, his Elders had decided that the negotiations would be good practice for the duties that he would one day undertake as a fully fledged Avatar.</p><p>At the same time however, this also meant that her training would have to be halted for the time being. As had been the practice ever since the prosperous rule of her great-grandfather Firelord Sozin, the spring season had brought along with it the arrival of the realm’s nobility to Caldera City. While her younger self may have been delighted at the opportunities for mischief that this presented, the Royal Gardens were now teeming with so many petty aristocrats that there was now little to no chance of her getting away with practicing her bending.</p><p>Aang may have kept his promise to not tell on her, but Azula rather doubted that her grandfather’s courtiers were quite as generous.</p><p>As she continued her afternoon stroll through the Palace hallways, the young Princess pondered the rather peculiar friendship she had recently struck with a certain young air nomad ever since their accidental meeting. She had ignored him at first, busy with rehearsing the defence that she planned to use when he would no doubt expose her nightly activities. To Azula’s surprise however, he never did. </p><p>Instead, the Avatar had ended up joining her sessions. Yet again, he had surprised her by the level of commitment he showed in their training— which, she supposed, rather reminded her of her own sense of diligence. </p><p>As Aang had whispered to her during one such night, technically he was not supposed to learn Firebending just yet. The boy was determined to master all the four elements as soon as possible however, and with the help of a friend named Kuzon who had apparently taught him the basics during his earlier travels, he had secretly procured a set of Firebending scrolls purportedly written by Avatar Szeto. </p><p>When he later shared these scrolls with her, she had been so taken aback by his kindness that she had almost burned one of the ancient documents. Instead of being mad like a reasonable person however, the foolish boy had just laughed and lightly teased her.</p><p>Despite the pleasant nature of the memory, Azula frowned and abruptly stopped walking. Magnanimously ignoring the apologies of the servants carefully walking around her in the narrow hallway, her mind now turned to the issue that had been bugging her over the past couple days.</p><p>Namely, the crisis of what to get her new friend for his upcoming birthday. Aang had already told her not to bother, but she figured she knew him well enough by this point that he was probably just trying to make her not feel guilty. She had heard him mention once that this was his first time celebrating a birthday away from the Southern Air Temple, and she knew he still suffered from homesickness sometimes. The Elders in his delegation were mostly from the Western Air Temple, and judging from his descriptions of them, they were not as close to him as the Gyatso figure that so often appeared in his anecdotes.</p><p>Unfortunately, as a Princess of the Fire Nation, she lacked much experience in giving gifts. Broaching the subject with her mother had not helped much either, as she had been so excited about who the possible recipient was that Azula had to eventually awkwardly resort to laughing off her question as a really weird joke. Asking the rest of her relatives, or even Ty Lee and Mai for that matter, was completely out of the question.</p><p>The sound of someone clearing their throat made her look upwards to the sight of her princely Father. Azula sighed. From the look of his unamused gaze, she must have been so caught up in her thoughts that she had almost missed her evening classes with the other noble girls. Mentally preparing herself for the endless scolding that would no doubt be unleashed upon her, she made a promise to herself that she would resolve the conundrum of Aang’s gift before the end of the day.</p><hr/><p>In the end she decided to bake him a fruit pie. It was difficult to top his gift of the scrolls, but given how often he complained of the absence of the Southern Air delicacy from the Fire Nation, she rather thought he would appreciate the effort.</p><p>Finally with a clear goal in mind, Azula dedicated the following day to accomplishing her task. Heading straight to the palace archives after her morning lessons, she managed to find the recipe in a journal written by Avatar Roku over the course of his travels around the world.</p><p>Assigning a servant to procure the specified ingredients for her, she waited until nightfall so that she would have the kitchens for herself. Ordering one of the palace cooks to bake it for her had briefly crossed her mind, but she ended casted aside the thought as quickly as it had come. The prospect of someone discovering it would open herself up to too many awkward questions, and really would be it so bad if she were to bake it herself? As a child, she had often helped her grandmother cook whenever she visited and in any case, she had never encountered something which she had not been able to perfectly achieve after setting her mind to it. Seriously, how hard could baking a simple fruit pie be?</p><hr/><p>Turns out it was significantly harder than she initially had thought. </p><p>As brilliant as she was, she lacked the airbending ability to create the spiral shape so wondrously unique to fruit pies that Roku had described in his journal. Despite spending the whole night baking in an attempt to replicate it, she was eventually forced to withdraw from the kitchens in defeat.</p><p>As she waited in the secret meeting point that she and Aang had agreed upon, Azula glared at the result of all her efforts. </p><p>Though the pie could not reply back, she was insulted all the same. She just hoped that Aang wouldn’t be too disappointed with her. Though she knew he was too nice to stop hanging out with her, she would certainly understand if he took back the scroll that he had so generously given to her.</p><p>Just as she had started to worry that he would even show up, the person who had so dominated her thoughts over the past few days finally emerged from the corridor. </p><p>Seeing him abruptly stop there, clear surprise etched upon his face as he glanced at her pie was too much that she had to look away. She couldn’t stand to see the disappointment that he undoubtedly felt towards her failure.</p><p>She wasn’t prepared for him to leap across the hallway, in the way that only Airbenders can, just to enthusiastically hug her in a way no one else had done before.</p><p>As she basked in Aang’s gratitude, she allowed herself to get over her failure. She may not have succeeded, but her friend was still happy and wasn’t that the point of her task? </p><p>….She decided that she would address the blush threatening to rise to her cheeks another time.</p><hr/><p>Peeking over the corner of the hallway one last time, as if to burn the unlikely image before her into her memory (which Zuko was most definitely going to hear about), Mai turned away to look at her other best friend. </p><p>The classic sight of Ty Lee pouting was what greeted her.</p><p>"I can’t believe she forgot that today’s my birthday as well...."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next up, back to Aang's POV!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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